


Befriending Tracy.

by rawenky



Category: Angelo la débrouille | Angelo rules
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, The Tracy redemption we deserve, angelo is a good friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 16,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24089992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rawenky/pseuds/rawenky
Summary: Peter needed a babysitter and Tracy wanted money, it was simple.But when Angelo suddenly wants to befriend Tracy, it all becomes much more stressful, and much more scary for Tracy and Angelo to spend this much time together.
Relationships: Angelo / Gladys de la Fourbinière | Tracy Flickinger, Gladys de la Fourbinière | Tracy Flickinger & Lola
Comments: 27
Kudos: 27





	1. A boring, tiring evening.

It’s not because she likes Peter that Tracy is willing to babysit him, she just wants the money. Plus the child is really annoying sometimes, but that’s not a surprise, considering he’s _Angelo’s_ _brother_.

Tracy’s not happy when she rings the doorbell to Angelo’s house, but she puts a smile on her face because she doesn’t have the energy to deal with _the mother_.

“Hello Tracy! How are you?” 

Tracy was right, it was the mother who opened the door. “I’m good thanks.” She keeps the answers short, small talk isn’t part of the job and right now talking is tiring.

Tracy enters the house and sets her stuff on the table. Her uncle has been crazy with the homework this week and she really needs to spend more time to work on her grades, so while the mini Angelo sleeps, she does her homework. Maybe if she tries really hard she can even beat Sherwood. 

Tonight though, the small nuisance that is Peter is on a sugar-high and keeps running everywhere as his mother talks. 

“We are invited to a party with some neighbors, but it’s past Peter’s bedtime, we’ll come home before midnight, but feel free to sleep in the couch and take something from the fridge if you’re hungry.” And blah, blah, blah all the usual stuff Tracy already knows by heart. 

“Don’t worry, Peter will be just fine with me.” She says, maybe she means it, but right now Tracy just wants Angelo’s mother to leave.

“Honey we’re leaving!” And now the father is here too with his annoying squeaky voice and his ugly shirt.

“Hello sir!” Tracy says, her voice sweet and kind when really she just wants to punch someone in the face.

“Hello Tracy! It’s nice to see you,” he says,“Honey, Elena is waiting.”

Oh please not another member of this family, Tracy isn’t sure she could support it.

__  
  


Gladly the mother left with her husband and no one else came in to bother her. Peter had stopped running when Tracy turned on the TV for his favorite cartoon.

The night stretches out, minutes becoming hours and Peter gets hungry. Tracy is supposed to cook him a salad, but then the only option if she’s hungry is macaroni and cheese, but it’s a hard no since Schmitty once put an extreme amount of salt in it. So Tracy makes the mac and cheese for Peter and eat the salad herself, and Peter is happy.

They eat in silence, Peter playing with his food instead of just _putting it in his mouth_ and Tracy doesn’t care enough to tell him to stop. It’s later than it should be when they’re both done with their plate and Tracy has to force Peter to brush his teeth.

“Tracy, I don’t want to go to sleep!” the nuisance tells her when he puts on his pyjama. 

And Tracy snaps, because he just spent the whole evening doing what he wanted to do, and he keeps asking for more. “I don’t care, I let you watch TV, I gave you mac and cheese, and I let you play with your food, now you’re going to listen to me.”

Her voice was as sharp as the one she uses when she spits out insults or defies authority, maybe it’s too sharp for Peter, because he closes his mouth shut and walks to his room. Tracy couldn’t care less.

__

The next day at school Tracy passes the maths test without any problems and with the best grade of the class because Sherwood had spent the night with Angelo and Lola at a party and couldn’t study. Tracy is really happy to know that it’s because she was here to babysit Peter that Sherwood was forced to spend his time with Angelo yesterday.

  
  



	2. And as usual, they had a fight.

The same thing happen this evening, Tracy knocked on Angelo’s door, the mother opened, gave her the same instructions as she always did, and everyone left. Peter is sitting quietly on the couch and he runs upstairs when Tracy approaches him, maybe she was too harsh yesterday… 

Tracy’s uncle was really proud of her when she got the highest grade on the maths test and Tracy wants to keep things that way, so she puts some classical music on her phone and starts studying her lessons for this week’s tests. 

The house is oddly silent and she works faster than she ever did while babysitting the nuisance. Maybe that’s not a good thing, if Peter tells his mom about how Tracy never plays with him, she’ll lose the job and the money that goes with it. With a sigh tracy gets up from the couch and as slowly as possible, she walks up the stairs and crosses the hallway separating her from Peter’s room. She knows about privacy, unlike her parents, so she knocks on Peter’s door and actually _waits_ for an answer before coming in.

“Come in,” Peter’s squeaky voice tells her after her third knock. Tracy enters his room to find a mess of toys and plastic boxes scattered the carpet, she almost trips on a car when she steps in. 

“What are you doing?” Her voice is as sharp as ever, and Peter flinches and lowers his head. She isn’t grounding him, but with the way she talks that’s how it feels. “It came out wrong, I’m just surprised by the mess.” She suppress the apology that wants to escape her lips, she has nothing to apologize for, she was just a bit harsh.

Peter shrugs, and begins explaining that ‘the mess’ is a town for his toys and that is was destroyed by the giant unicorn, who -if tracy understands correctly- is the plush toy on his bed. Apparently his rabbit plushie is a superhero and he’s caught up in a trap during a fight. Which is ridiculous because the trap isn’t even a trap, it’s just a pile of socks, the rabbit could’ve gotten out already.

“Your trap doesn’t work,” She tells him, “I know how to make traps, I could help you.” 

Peter smiles, all teeth and gums. “That’s really cool! Show me a trap!” he’s as excited as he is when on a sugar high, an if Tracy had any thoughts about not doing it, now she feels obligated to do the best rabbit trap she can make, but just for the sake of logic, not because of Peter’s smile or the way his eyes lit up with excitement.

“The first thing to do, is to stop him from moving,” Tracy explains, “You can use hair ties, or put him in a sock. I’m going to put him in a sock because there’s plenty of them here. Now after that, you have to make sure he can’t call for help, so put him in the sock face first.” 

It’s simple, really, but to Peter it seems that Tracy is a genius. He does as she said, and tell her, “You must be a supervillain to know all of that!” 

It stings a little inside when the first word that comes to his mind is ‘supervillain‘ and not ‘trap expert‘ or just ‘smart‘ but perhaps she had it coming with the way she talked to him the other day. 

“It’s dinner time, go wash your hands.” Tracy tells him, and she heads downstairs to the kitchen. 

Peter’s mother bought some soup and Tracy just has to heat it up in the microwave. They eat quietly and Peter goes to bed without arguing. Tracy returns to her homework for an hour or so, before hearing the front door open next to her.

Before she can do anything, Angelo enters the house, looking upset, fists clenched and head low. He sees Tracy and grunts. “I’m not in the mood for your provocations,” he says.

“I didn’t say anything you idiot.”

“But you were about to do so!” Angelo exclaims, he’s furious now, and he’ll wake up Peter if he continues. He doesn’t seem to remember the existence of his brother right now and he looks ready to punch her in the face -that already happened before- however this time Tracy did nothing wrong. 

“You’re too loud, you’ll wake Peter up, and no I wasn’t about to do anything, now calm down or I’m calling your mother.” She keeps her voice low, even if it’s weird to be the one that’s not yelling for once. She watches Angelo kicking his shoes off and fighting himself to remove his jacket, and when he’s done moving, she motions for him to sit down on the couch next to her. 

Angelo tried to walk as slowly as possible, but with the couch being not even a meter away, it takes him fifteen ridiculous seconds to be next to Tracy. He sits down, but turns his back to her and curls his legs in front of his chest, hugging them with his arms.

Angelo’s not going to talk to her if she stays here saying nothing, Tracy sighs and after a quick glance at her phone, she sees Angelo’s parents won’t be home for at least two hours. Her homework isn’t done and she needs a drink, so she opts for a quick trip to the kitchen to make two glasses of tomato juice. When she comes back to the living room, Angelo hasn’t moved. She keeps her glass and put the second one on the coffee table.

“What are you drinking?” Angelo asks when she sits back down. His head is raised awkwardly above his shoulder, because he’s too stupid to _turn around_ to face her. 

“Tomato juice,” Tracy answers, her glass is barely pulled away from her mouth and she speaks half inside of it, voice echoing a bit. “You should drink yours, it’s healthier than soda, and it tastes better.”

Angelo scoffs, “No way, tomato juice is tasteless.”

“Not if you put pepper in it.” 

The disgusted face he makes is hilarious and Tracy laughs a little in her glass. 

“I’m serious though,” she says, “pepper and minced shallot and it gets delicious.” 

“Yeah, because you’re a psychopath.”

“Whatever, just drink it.” 

Angelo doesn’t drink it, he doesn’t even want to taste it. So Tracy drinks it after finishing hers. Angelo adjusts his position on the couch, and stops turning away from Tracy, she sees this as an improvement.

Something’s not right with Angelo being here though. His mother told her he wouldn’t be home, yet here he is. “Aren’t you supposed to be at Sherwood’s house?”

Angelo sighs, long and slow and so, so _tired_. “I was. There was a pyjama party, but then the boys started talking about crushes and Sherwood told the others about my crush on Lola’s cousin and I got angry. I left when they started mocking me.”

 _Oh_. That’s… harsh. Now Tracy understand the way he acted when he got home. “You realize you just told me who your crush was?” She asks him, because while she loves annoying him, she won’t use something he told her when he was too angry to think about the consequences. She at least respects her rival’s dignity enough to do so.

“Tell the whole school of you want, everyone already knows by now.” Angelo doesn’t sound angry anymore, he just sounds desperate and sad, like he gave up on the control he had on his life. 

“I won’t.”

Angelo laughs, a cold, sarcastic laugh that usually comes out of Tracy’s mouth instead. “Then you’re better than my best friends.” 

Tracy scoffs, “Then you have really bad friends.”

“Maybe I do.” 

They stay silent afterwards, it’s uncomfortable and boring, but they’re both not brave enough to do anything.

Small steps break the silence, and Peter’s head peers out from the staircase. “Tracy, I had a nightmare.”

Tracy almost jumps from the couch, and quickly follow Peter upstairs with Angelo behind her, the boy not trusting her even after two weeks of her babysitting his brother.

She puts Peter to bed, and asks him about his nightmare.

“It- it was my best friend Cooper, he was eaten by the unicorn monster.”

Tracy’s not nice to Peter, usually she just ignores him completely, but tonight she can’t find the force to tell him to _just go back to sleep_. Even if her voice is sharp and trained to hurt with only words, she tries to comfort Peter. “I can trap the unicorn so it can’t happen for real, would you like that?”

Peter nods, so Tracy takes an empty plastic box and put the unicorn in it, she leaves the room to steal a bunch of hair clips from the bathroom and ‘seals’ the box shut. 

She kneels next to Peter when she’s done. “Alright, if you keep the hair clips on, the unicorn can’t escape, if one of them fall, ask Angelo to seal it again, okay?”

“But Angelo’s not a supervillain, he can’t do traps!”

Tracy doesn’t want to know Angelo’s reaction for the ‘supervillain’ thing, it already hurts enough without him knowing. “I'll teach him before I leave.”

Peter accepts her offer, and Tracy leaves his room. 

Angelo is about to say something, she knows it, and before he opens his mouth, she walks right in front of him and says “Don’t say anything.” Voice as sharp as ever, but right now, after what he just saw, her menaces are useless.

Angelo’s eyes never leave hers, the discomfort from before rushing back, and this time Angelo’s brave enough to say, “You’re not a supervillain.”

“I know, I just let Peter think what he wants.”

He grabs her shoulders, to be sure Tracy understands. “I mean it. You’re a nice person Tracy, and I want to be your friend.”

It’s ridiculous, a few minutes ago he hated her, and now he wants to be all friendly with her. “Just because I was nice to your brother?”

“Yes.”

She wasn’t expecting this, and she doesn’t do friends. They’re supposed to hate each other.

“No.”

Angelo is hurt, she can practically feel it. His hands leave her shoulders and his eyes refuse to meet hers. “Oh, okay.”

They head downstairs and Tracy goes to sit by the table, leaving Angelo playing go on his phone alone on the couch. 


	3. Detentions.

They don’t talk, after the ‘incident’. Tracy continues to babysit Peter, but whenever Angelo come home early, she leaves immediately, even if the money she’s gaining is affected by it.

Angelo and Sherwood are still in bad terms, as well as Angelo and the rest of his other friends. Except Lola, she must be too kind to leave Angelo alone.

It has been weeks since Angelo and Tracy’s latest argument, their whole class is on edge, waiting for all the tension to finally explode. Tracy already stole Candy’s lunch, broke Ajay’s pens and forced her uncle to confiscate Ethan’s phone so he can’t play on it in class. She also gave even more detention, Sherwood was too early in front of the school and he got two hours after school, Butter-Fingers fell twice in sport and he got three hours.

There’s even some sort of ‘revolution’ being raised behind her back, or they think it is, because the whispers behind Tracy’s back aren’t really whispered discreetly. The moment where Angelo and Tracy will collide again is close, and everyone know fists will be thrown hard enough to hurt.

__  
  


The ‘revolution’ got worse.

Angelo reunited all of the class in the lunchroom and refused to do anything until Tracy stopped giving detention. At first she thought it would be easy to take them down, but they outsmarted all of her moves, and now she’s in detention…

“Tracy, stop mumbling and do your homework.”

“I’m not mumbling.” 

“Don’t talk to me like that young lady, or I’ll tell everything to your father tonight.”

But she’s furious, surely her own uncle can understand? Apparently not, because _he_ gave _her_ detention instead of just, grounding her or something. 

“This is stupid, this whole school is stupid, if I could I’ll punch them all in the guts…” Tracy whispers, and her fist are clenched so tight on her pen her knuckles are turning white.

“Tracy, last warning.” Mr Foote is looking at her from his desk, lips pinched.

“That’s because she’s not used to your lovely company, sir.” 

Tracy can’t believe the audacity of Angelo right now, he put her in this mess, and now he’s mocking her? When the whole detention thing is over, he is _so_ going to suffer. She’ll never babysit his brother again, she’s going to steal his lunch every day and hurt all of his friends, she’ll break his nose, and his arms, and his legs, and his pretty face…

“Angelo be quiet!” Mr Foote is on the verge of yelling, he sighs, and says, “Why can’t you two be sleeping like Manetti…”

“Because I’m allergic to petty know-it-all,” Angelo says.

“Oh yeah? Well I’m allergic to helpless idiots!” Tracy retorts.

“Selfish brat!”

“Waste of air!”

He scoffs, “At least I’m not scared of friendship!” and crosses his arms.

Scared, Tracy? In his dreams! “I’m not scared! I have standards.”

“Yeah, I bet your standards are things like ‘must be as toxic as me’!” 

“Listen here you little—”

“Enough! Both of you! You’re punished for the week, you’ll both clean the lunchroom after class, starting now!” Mr Foote’s face is red with anger.

“Angelo started it!” Tracy says, it’s not fair, he can’t punish her like that, he’s her mother’s brother for crying out loud!

“I don’t care who started what, go to the lunchroom immediately and start cleaning!” Mr Foote points to the door, waiting for the two of them to leave.

__  
  


Tracy sits on one of the tables, determined to do nothing at all. “This is still your fault,” she says. Angelo glares at her from across the room and she crosses her arms in front of her. 

“If you think about it, it’s your fault, you’re the one who started giving detention for nothing.” The broom he was handling gets thrown at her feet. “Start cleaning.”

“Whatever.”

They end up cleaning the kitchen after finishing the lunchroom, because Tracy did punch Angelo in the face, and he hit her back, and it escalated to the point where they were pulling hair and pushing each other against the tables and the walls. Mr Foote wasn’t happy when he entered the lunchroom to find Angelo held against a wall by Tracy, her lip cut and her glasses long gone from her face. To Tracy’s defense, Angelo was in a bad shape too, he’ll surely have a black eye the next day.

This time Schmitty was forced to watch them cleaning, to be sure they wouldn’t fight again. Angelo had stopped spitting out stupid remarks long ago, and Tracy was too focused on reprimanding herself to start another fight. 

She was furious, getting into a fight was the very thing she tried not to do, but all of her actions led that way anyway, she’s been stupid and inconsiderate before, but this time was the worst. Tracy thought that if she was mean, other would leave her alone, clearly she was too mean, and as a result she’s back to arguing with Angelo, who will try to befriend her again because he _always does_.

“Hey, uh, you punch pretty hard, that’s… cool.” It’s like he’s hearing her thoughts. Trying to lighten up the mood being all nice and friendly, right after Tracy decides to punch him, _repeatedly_. Why is he still trying at this point? He already knows she won’t be his friend. 

“You punch like an idiot,” she tells him, “It’s like you don’t want to hurt when you punch, that’s stupid.” She focuses on the floor in front of her eyes, cleaning it again and again, just to be sure.

“Maybe I don’t want to hurt you.”

Angelo’s washing plates, but he’s so focused on looking at her that half of the water he’s using doesn’t even touch the plates.

“Well I want to hurt you, so I’ll be continuing the whole fight thing, even if you don’t hit like you mean it.” The floor is clean, perhaps too much, but it’s either the floor or Angelo, and right now the floor sound better.

“I don’t understand you Tracy, why are you so mean to everyone?”

Okay that’s enough, she can’t stand it anymore. “Why am I mean?” She drops the broom, and walk straight to Angelo, trapping him between her and the sink. “Because I like it. I enjoy seeing Candy cry when she sees me, or hearing Monica telling everyone how horrible I am when she thinks I’m not listening.” 

Tracy grabs Angelo by the collar of his vest, and pulls his face so close their noses touch. “I like seeing you trying again, and again, and again, each time harder to be my friend, when deep down you know it won’t happen.” 

She’s just done speaking when Schmitty drags her away from Angelo. “Alright guys, I think everything is clean, you can go now.”

Schmitty practically drags them out of the school, eager to be left alone. The school yard is empty, and the sun is low in the sky, it’s been hours since their class left. 

“My mom’s going to kill me.” Angelo says, and Tracy doesn’t know if he’s talking about the black eye or the unexpectedly long detention, probably both. “And yours? I’m sure she won’t like seeing her precious little girl hurt.”

That’s when Angelo’s wrong. “She doesn’t care, she never does.” Tracy shrugs, and prepares herself for the whole ‘I’m so sorry’ thing.

It never comes. Instead Angelo raised an eyebrow and said, “Makes sense, she’s Foote’s sister.”

And Tracy has to agree. The ‘Foote’ part of her family isn’t found of caring, and she’s glad someone finally understood this. She nods at Angelo, and leaves him here.


	4. The deal.

Tracy just got time to clean the cut on her lip, before her phone rang and Angelo’s mother asked her to come babysit Peter for the evening. Tracy’s refusal was on the edge of her lips, but she couldn’t force it out, and relentlessly accepted.

Angelo was home too, but he was grounded for getting in a fight with someone, Tracy’s surprised to realize Angelo didn’t say it was her. He could’ve watched over Peter himself, but apparently he was too irresponsible.

Peter already ate, Tracy only has to put him to bed. The parents and Elena are going to the opening ceremony of an art gallery, it’s most likely they’ll stay out late. 

The nuisance wanted her help to trap the unicorn again, because only Tracy was ‘evil enough’ to know how to make traps… She closed the box again, and when Peter only said a small thank you, she knew she wasn’t welcomed here anymore. She left the bedroom, and headed downstairs for a long night of doing homework and listening to music.

Tracy’s deep in a book when she feels a weight downing next to her. “Does it still hurts?” Angelo asks. He’s got an ice pack on his eye, Tracy’s pretty proud of that.

“If you’re talking about my lip, then yeah a bit, but I don’t care,” she answers. The pain is absurd, and she only feels it when she smiles, which is very rare in her case. “And you?” she asks, just because she’s curious to know if she hit him hard.

“I literally can't feel my eye.” 

Tracy hums in approval, and denies the controller Angelo tries to give her. He shrugs, and turn on his console. 

They spent a long time like this, Angelo playing a racing game and moving along with his controller when he clearly doesn’t need to, and Tracy is shoving him away when he gets too close every two seconds, to the point where she gives up and is forced to tolerate him leaning on her while she’s trying to read. After an upteenth elbow she recieves in the ribs, Tracy has had enough. She grabs Angelo’s wrist and bend the hand holding the controller down, forcing him to drop it between them.

“If you touch me one more time, I swear to god I’ll break your nose,” Tracy whispers through gritted teeths. She doesn’t let go of his hands, Angelo’s tugging at her and she leans closer. “Do you understand?”

Angelo gulps, and nods. Tracy’s pressure on his wrists gets softer, until all he can feel is the memory of her touch and the burn that goes with it. 

Tracy returns to her book, and after minutes of no contact, she’s assured Angelo understood the message, and she feels safe enough to let her guard down a little, before receiving Angelo’s elbow right in the gut hard enough to trap her breath in her throat and make her gag. 

“I’m so sorry Tracy, my controller fell and I-” 

She doesn’t leave him time to speak, and goes straight for the nose, Angelo avoids her fist though, and they fall from the couch in the precipitation. 

“I said I’m sorry! Stop!” Angelo yells, Tracy swears under her breath and let go of him.

“You know what, if you want me to stop, I choose what to eat.”

Angelo nods vigorously. “Of course! Just don’t hit me again. Just so you know, you hit pretty hard!” He stands and picks up the ice pack he dropped in the ‘fight’.

“Of course I hit hard, who do you think I am? Butter-Fingers?” Tracy says, walking to the kitchen.

__

“Does it have to be soup?” 

Tracy sighs, she spent hours cleaning the lunchroom, tried to tolerate Angelo’s presence and failed miserably and now Angelo was being worse than his eight years old brother. And she thought Peter was acting like a baby…

“Soup is important if you want to grow a brain in that empty skull of yours.” Angelo frowns and she smirks at him.

“I hate you,” he says. 

Tracy huffs, “The annoying part is that we both know you’re lying.”

She puts some distance between them, and sits by the table, leaving him on the couch. 

“Yeah you’re right, I appreciate you,” He says, and sips some soup from his bowl under Tracy’s sharp glare.

“But why?”

“I like how confident you are about yourself, and how you never back away from a challenge. You’re like, the only one to really understand me.”

Yeah right, and Mrs Perla is the Easter Bunny. “What about Lola and Sherwood?” 

Angelo’s whole body twists away from her. “I love them, I really do, but sometimes Sherwood really hurts my feeling because he doesn’t understand them. And Lola, Lola is just… too much, all the time. She’s always smiling and yelling, usually I like that, but now that I’m always with her without Sherwood, I find it really annoying.”

Well that was honest, and that makes Tracy want to be honest too. “Sherwood is nice, sometimes, but then he says things like ‘you need to change your way of thinking’ and I just-” 

She’s on the other side of the room, but it feels like Angelo’s too close when he turns back to her, that he’s going to read right through her. And it scares her.

“I just can’t. The way I think is wrong, but it’s not possible for me to just, change it. Sherwood doesn’t understand that.”

“There’s nothing wrong about you, Tracy.” 

That’s exactly why it scares her, this _affection_ he directs at her without a doubt, when all she ever does to him is literally hitting him in the face.

“Angelo,” Tracy sighs, desperate. “I gave you a black eye today, I don’t think I deserve the kindness.”

Angelo put his bowl down, and walk to her, stopping right in front if the table. “Let’s make a deal. I’ll be nice to you, and every time it makes you feel uncomfortable, you tell me, and I’ll stop until you tell me I can do it again. And you, try to be less violent with others. Deal?”

That’s a stupid deal, they both know it won’t last, but Angelo’s trying, and Tracy feels forced to try too. 

She grabs the hand he extended across the table, and shakes it firmly. “Deal.”

__

It was past midnight when Angelo’s family came back, Peter was sleeping soundly, and Angelo went to bed too, leaving Tracy alone in the living room.

“Good evening Tracy.”

Tracy turns away from her book to welcome Angelo’s mother. 

“Good evening.”

The mother smiles, and motions to the door. “It’s late, I’ll drive you home.”

__  
  


The ride was mostly silent, until Angelo’s mother said, “I know you’re the one who hit Angelo.”

Tracy froze, eyes wide, before she cleared her throat and said, “It was me, I’m sorry…”

“I don’t want you to apologize to me, I want you to apologize to Angelo.”

She did apologize already, maybe not explicitly, but she did say she’ll try to do better. 

“I already did.”

“Oh, and what did he said?”

Tracy gulped, it was embarrassing to talk about this to people she somewhat trusted, and Angelo’s mother wasn’t even on the list. “We made a deal, he’s nice to me and I stop being mean.”

She couldn’t see the mother’s face, but with the tone of her voice she knew she wasn’t satisfied by her answer. 

“If I learn that you hurt my son, physically or mentally, you will get in a lot of trouble, do you understand?”

“I do understand, it’s just… sometimes it’s hard for me to act ‘decently’ with others. Angelo’s the only one who tried to help me with it, and I was scared of that. I got meaner somehow, and he continued to try.” She was going nowhere with this. “What I’m trying to say is, I can’t guarantee I won’t hurt Angelo, because I know myself, but I will do anything I can to get better at this ‘friendship’ thing.”

The mother hummed, “Fair enough,” she said. “I do hope for you to get better Tracy. Good night.”

“Good night.” Tracy said, and got out of the car.

She watched it turn at the end of the street, before the realization sunk down in her, leaving her staring at nothing, her thoughts running as fast as possible.

There are people out there who want to spend time with her, who want to help her get better, and one of those is supposed to hate her, yet he’s the one who took all the risks. Angelo was such a good person, that he was ready to take hits in the face for the sake of ‘befriending Tracy’. It was ridiculous, really, but Tracy couldn’t find the energy to hate it.


	5. Oh look Tracy’s getting better.

Tracy wakes up in a hurry, she didn’t hear her alarm and she’s late. Her hair looks awful and her shirt is ruffled but it’s better than to arrive late in her uncle’s class.

She enters the class the moment the bell rings, and get to her desk with a sigh.

“Good morning everyone, today we will work in groups of two to work on equations. I will create the groups myself.”

The whole class sighs, Mr Foote is  _ bad _ at making coherent groups, it always ends up in class fights. 

“Candy with Ajay, Butter-Fingers with Angelo, Tracy with Manetti-”

Tracy’s head snaps up, “What?”

“You heard me Tracy, now shush.”

He paired her with Manetti,  _ Manetti _ , the big brute who never recited the alphabet completely in his whole life… If he says anything stupid, Tracy will break his arm, she’s sure of it.

__

“So, uh… What’s the little two for?”

Tracy groans, it’s been ten minutes and Manetti is still stuck in the first equation. “It’s because you multiply three by itself, so three by three.” She tells him, for the  _ sixth time _ .

“Oh.” Manetti scratches his head. “But it’s a two not a three.”

_ Oh for the love of- _ Why is he this stupid? Did his parents drop him on the head as a newborn or something? 

“No, but that’s not really a number, it’s like a symbol, it just means to multiply a number by the same number.”

“Yeah but it’s a two.”

She’s going to hit him.

“Hey, Tracy! Can we talk for a second?” Angelo asks from behind her.

Tracy turns around and leaves Manetti to his equation, “What do you want?”

“Are you okay?” 

“I’m next to Manetti of course I’m not okay!” Tracy exclaims. “I swear to god I’m going to hit him.”

Angelo leans forward on his table. “Remember our deal? Just- just try to calm down before you do anything stupid.”

The only one doing something stupid right now is Manetti but yeah okay, whatever, she’ll try, maybe.

Manetti interrupts her, “Uh Tracy? I think I’m done.”

Turns out his result is wrong, but Tracy tells him to work on the next equation anyway, there’s no way she’ll explain  _ the little two _ again.

Manetti lets out a long groan, “I thought we were doing maths, but this is letters not numbers.”

Somebody stop her before she stabs his eyes with her pen.

Angelo might’ve noticed, because he throws his arm between Tracy and Manetti and says, “Manetti, you look tired, maybe you should take a nap.”

Manetti’s eyes went from Tracy to Angelo, then back to Tracy, and on Angelo again… It took a while, but Manetti finally understood and layed back on his chair to sleep.

Tracy sighs, Manetti left her alone, but she’s still way behind the other groups because of him. She need to think more positive, so she corrects herself, now that Manetti is asleep, she can work in peace. Angelo is still looking at her, knowing him he waits for an outburst, gladly there won’t be any.

“I appreciate your intervention, thank you, Angelo,” she tells him. 

Angelo makes the little ‘oh’ sound he always makes when Tracy surprises him, and gives her one of his best smiles. “No problem, you can call me anytime you need to put him to sleep.”

“I think I put people to sleep faster than you, Angelo. All I need to do is give them a little well-placed-punch.”

Angelo snorts and rolls his eyes, “Punches are useless if you have the mind of a genius.”

“You better start karate lessons then.” Tracy smirks and turns around, glancing at the mass of uncompleted equations waiting for her. 

“Yeah, whatever, go back to equation-ing, you’re falling behind.”

__

“Attention please,” 

The whole class jumps in surprise as the voice resonates in the hallways. 

“All the teachers are needed in the teacher’s room for a meeting, every student is free to leave the school.”

True happiness, extremely rare, and wanted by many. It is now offered to their whole school. Everyone is cheering, grabbing their stuff as fast as they can and rushing through the gates. 

“Except of course Angelo Dujardin and Tracy Flickinger who are needed in the lunchroom for their detention.”

Turns out true happiness doesn’t exist. At least not for Angelo and Tracy.

Some of their classmates looked at them on their way out, Ethan gave Angelo a clap on the shoulder and a ‘sorry bro’ before heading out with Butter-Fingers.

Sherwood stayed behind to grab Angelo’s bag. “I’ll give your bag to your mom, I’m sorry you have to endure this, especially with  _ her _ .” His eyes landed on Tracy, and he left the room with a sneer.

Angelo shrugs, and drop his hand on Tracy’s shoulder. “Don’t listen to him, I prefer getting my nose broken than spending an hour with Foote and Manetti.”

Tracy ignores him, “Come on, we have some cleaning to do.”

__

It took them  _ two hours _ to fully clean the lunchroom, someone must’ve started a food fight because there’s no way yogurt can lend on the walls naturally.

They leave school earlier than they would’ve if class wasn’t cancelled, but they lost two hours  _ cleaning _ , Tracy doesn’t consider it good.

Angelo is running after her on the street, “Hey Tracy wait!” 

“What?”

“Would you like to come play a game or something with me?”

“I’m sorry Angelo, but I don’t think I will enjoy it.”

His shoulders slump a little, but he nods softly at her, “It’s fine, I understand.”

Tracy takes a turn at the next street, and behind her she hears Angelo yell, “You did great today, I’m proud of you!”

He doesn’t hear the thank you she whispers back, but Tracy means it enough for him to accept her lack of answer.


	6. That moment when you develop a crush on the local cutie.

Tracy is supposed to babysit Peter, not Angelo, Sherwood and Lola. Yet here she is, watching them to make sure they don’t break something while skating around the house. Peter is in his room in front of his favorite cartoon, and Tracy is stuck between Lola and Angelo on the couch waiting for Sherwood to show them his new thing. Angelo is getting too close, Lola is being too loud and Sherwood is taking too long, Tracy is tired and she needs _calm_.

“You know you can leave.” Angelo tells her when she sighs for the upteenth time today.

“And let you break something with that awful skating of yours? In your dreams Angelo,” she spits back.

Lola nods next to her, “She’s not wrong Angelo, your skating _is_ awful these days.”

Tracy turns to face Lola, “Thank you.” She’s glad they’re on the same page.

Angelo acts like they broke his skate, mouthing nonsense at the two of them.

“Guys! I’m ready!” Sherwood yells behind them. They all turn around to look at him, and see him skate down the stairs and take a sharp turn to avoid hitting the wall.

That must be something impressive, because Angelo and Lola are cheering like crazy.

Sherwood salutes them, grinning happily, “Thank you, thank you.” 

Tracy eyes the three of them, “I don’t understand, was it supposed to be impressive or something?”

Lola and Sherwood scoff at her like she insulted them and their whole family. Sherwood frowns at her, “Can’t you be nice for more than five seconds?”

Did they really thought she was insulting them. “Wait, wha- no! I’m not being mean!” Tracy exclaims.

Angelo burst out laughing next to her, and when everyone glares at him, he tries to stiffen his laughter to explain. “She asked a question, and you guys thought she insulted you? _Ohmygod_ this is priceless.”

He continues to laugh for something that’s really not _that_ funny, and Lola makes a long ‘Ohhhh’ when she understands what Angelo means. 

Lola leans on Tracy’s side, poking at her shoulder. “Wait you really don’t know?”

 _Here we go…_ “No, I don’t.”

“Oh Tracy, my dear, innocent Tracy, come here.” Lola grabs her by the arm and tries to _cuddle_ her. “Momma will take care of you,” she coos. 

Tracy is about to push her off when Angelo slumps over her left side, trapping her between him and Lola, he whispers ‘ _there, there_ ’ and tangles his fingers in her hair. He takes a strand of her hair between his fingers and brush it lightly. “Your hair is sooo soft.” 

In a second Tracy’s being assaulted by three pairs of hands trying to touch her hair, her glasses fall off her face and Lola’s trapping her with her legs around her torso to stop her from squirming out of the couch. Angelo’s right in front of her face, hand buried in her hair, and Sherwood is standing over her trying to touch the hair Angelo isn’t trying to keeps to himself. It would feel good to have people stroking her hair, if they weren’t _torturing_ her in the process. 

“Stop! Personal space, remember?” she yells. She can’t even find her own hands on this mess.

“But it’s like petting a kitten! It’s so soft…” Lola says, she giggling at her observation and Angelo hums in approval.

“I don’t care, leave my hair alone!” 

They ignore her and play with her hair some more, Lola even braids tiny little strands of her hair.

They did this for _ten minutes_ and only stopped because Peter ran downstairs after hearing Tracy screaming for mercy. For his age, Peter is pretty strong, he manages to drag Angelo away all by himself, allowing Tracy to kick her way out of this death trap. For that Peter gets to eat cereals for dinner, while Angelo is forced to eat both his and Peter’s vegetables. The moment Tracy presents the vegetables to Angelo, Lola and Sherwood remember they have somewhere else to be and leave the house.

Tracy’s in charge of the cooking because the last time Angelo was in the kitchen something exploded. While Angelo and Peter are arguing over what to watch on TV, Tracy thinks about turning it off just to annoy them and hide the remote on a high shelf where they wouldn’t search for it.

__

Apparently it’s cold outside and there’s an odd looking guy in the streets since this afternoon so Angelo’s mother refuses to let Tracy walk home alone in the dark. That’s sweet of her, really, but asking for Angelo to walk with her instead of letting Tracy call her mom or her uncle to pick her up seems rather stupid. 

The walk _does_ feel better than a car ride though, it’s been a while since Tracy went on a walk, and it’s the closest she can get to a real walk. And it’s not cold, to her and her trusty leather jacket at least, because Angelo’s shivering non stop since they left his house. 

“You know we can go back to your house and grab you a coat?” Tracy asks him once she gets to hear his teeth chattering after a particularly cold gust of wind.

Angelo shrugs it off as much as he can while trembling like a leaf. “It’s okay, don’t worry about me.”

“Hang on…” Tracy says. She takes off her jacket and hands it to him, the size won’t be a problem, she’s taller than him and he’s thinner than a chopstick. “I’m not cold, if you’re wondering.”

Angelo tries to refuse, but Tracy isn’t taking no for an answer, and Angelo takes the jacket. It looks good on him, well, black isn’t really good with his atrocious gray pants but in the dark it doesn’t hurt the eye as much.

“Since when do you have a leather jacket anyway? It’s not really you’re style.” Angelo asks, his voice is already less shaky.

Tracy shrugs, “It was my mom’s, she wanted to throw it in the trash. I’m thinking about changing my style a bit.” She _is_ wearing a slightly shorter skirt than usual today, the pencil skirts are making her look like a business woman these days. “Does it looks bad?” She asks, because she’s full of confidence but not to much, mind you.

“I like the new skirt better, yeah. You just need to spend an afternoon with Lola to find a T-shirt to go with the jacket.”

Tracy glares at him like he told her something really insulting, like suggesting she could buy a T-shirt for example.

Angelo clears his throat, “Or a shirt, it’s up to you.” 

She hums and they continue their walk in silence, mostly. Angelo’s ranting about how nice the jacket feels and Tracy finds it way too cute to ask him to shut up. They reach Tracy’s house, and Angelo is giving her the jacket back, but Tracy decides against it, it was way too adorable to see Angelo in it.

“Keep it,” she tells him, “but wear blue pants to go with it next time.”

Angelo stares at her then at the jacket in his hands. “But it’s yours.”

“Obviously,” Tracy deadpans.

“I can’t just _take_ your jacket.”

“You’re not taking anything, I’m _giving_ it to you.”

“But it’s brand new! And I thought you liked it.” He pushes the jacket against Tracy’s chest, forcing her to take it.

Tracy shoves it to him. “Take it, you’re cold and my mother won’t remark anything.” He shoves it back to her anyway so she leans closer to him an whispers in his ear, “You look cute in it, you know?”

Angelo does the little ‘oh’ sound and his ears turn a lovely shade of pink, Tracy takes it as a yes and drapes it over his shoulders before turning around and leaving him on the sidewalk. “Have a nice weekend.” She winks at him when she closes her door, and she swears she saw him blush. 

__

Angelo wears the jacket the next Monday, with a pair of blue jeans, his ugly brown hoodie is nowhere to be seen. Tracy was right, he looks so much better like this. Lola and Sherwood were surprised by the sudden change of style, but thought Angelo looked really good.

At lunch Lola invites herself next to Tracy and forces the boys to sit with them.

“You look really good today Angelo,” Tracy says with her sweetest voice, “I _love_ your jacket, it really suits you.” She smirks, and winks at him when his friends aren’t looking.

Angelo turns pink in an instant, he looks even cuter now. “Thanks, I-uh… Elena gave it to me... as a gift, because it’s a gift, from Elena,” he stutters. He clears his throat and avoids Tracy’s eyes for the rest of their lunch break.

Lola nudges her arm. “So, Tracy. I heard you wanted to go shopping with me.”

_Of course Angelo told her._

Tracy nods. “Yeah, I’m changing my wardrobe, I thought it could be fun to… hang out with you.” 

“Awesome!” Lola exclaims, “Are you free after school? Yeah? Cool, meet me at four at the mall.” She doesn’t leave Tracy time to answer, and change the subject to talk about some sort video game.

It’s a good thing Tracy isn’t forced to do cleaning after school, and that she keeps her pocket money on her at all times. 

__

Tracy seriously thinks about leaving the mall when Lola drags her to an aisle filled only with _T-shirts_. She claps her hand on Lola’s mouth and firmly declares that they’re not going this way, and drags Lola far away from the T-shirts. 

“But why? I think they look cool!” Lola whines when Tracy lets her hand leave her face.

“Because I _hate_ them,” Tracy groans, “come on, we’re searching for pants.”

They find some nice jeans, and three skirts that actually look good on Tracy, her favorite one yet is a dark green skirt Lola found for her, it ends just above her knees and is the exact same color as her glasses. Lola liked it so much so almost bought it for Tracy. 

The shirts are a bit more complicated to find. Lola wants to try on some large shirts with bright and obnoxious patterns and a blue flannel shirt and Tracy does so just so Lola can stop whining and look for nicer shirts. One of the shirts is a neon green so bright that it _burns_ Tracy's eyes if she looks at it too much… 

“Let’s… try this monstrosity.” Tracy sighs, and sadly try the shirt on. It looks… kind of nice actually, the shirt feels comfortable at least, but the neon green? Tracy’s incapable of deciding whether it looks really good or really bad. 

“Are you okay in there?” Lola says from the other side of the door. 

She should show the shirt to Lola, maybe she can help her. 

“Yeah, just-” Tracy opens the door to show her the shirt, “does it looks bad?”

Lola gasps, “It. Looks. Perfect!” she exclaims, and takes out her phone to take way too many photos of Tracy at every possible angle with and without the flash. 

The other shirts are soon forgotten to make room for more simple looking ones, and Tracy ends up buying only three shirts, two white shirts and the now famous neon green shirt. Lola bought herself T-shirts when Tracy wasn’t looking because she’s got a stupid sense of style.

After their trip to the mall, Lola takes Tracy to Cathy’s bakery and buys her a cupcake to celebrate their new “friendship”, Tracy is surprised to realize that she doesn’t mind having overly-loud-and-cheerful-Lola as her friend.

“You know,” Lola says, mouth full of cake, “I don’t think Angelo’s jacket is from Elena.”

Tracy leans back on her chair and finishes her bite before talking, because _she_ received a proper education. “Oh yeah? What makes you think that?”

“Oh I don’t know…” Lola places both of her hands on the table and leans closer to Tracy’s face. “Maybe the fact that you wore the same jacket last Friday and now you don’t.”

“You caught me.” Tracy smiles. “He just looked too cute in it, I couldn’t just take it back.”

Lola snorts, “I know someone who has a crush on Angie-boy!” 

_Well yes, obviously… Why would she be nice to him if it wasn’t for that?_

“Of course I have a crush on him, I’m not blind yet.” Tracy retorts.

“Wait, what?” Lola gapes at her, “You admit it? I thought you’ll keep it a secret.” She is rather shocked, it looks adorable on her.

“I won’t yell it at anyone, but I’m honest with who I like.” Tracy says, she takes another bite of her cupcake because it’s delicious and her mouth is getting dry. “You don’t mind do you? I mean… he's head over heels for your cousin, so...”

Lola shakes her head vigorously, “Oh no! You can like who you like, it’s not my problem, same for Angelo and my cousin Cindy.”

Well that went, easier than she thought it would go. Now all Tracy has to do is meet this Cindy, if she’s as awesome as how Angelo described her, Tracy might end up liking her too.


	7. Falling for Tracy isn’t great.

The next day is… rather nice. Tracy wears her new shirt, and Lola is ecstatic. Monica glared at her in the hallways and told her the shirt was against the school rules, which is true, but Tracy  _ is _ the one making the rules, a few minutes later the dress code is brand new and all in favor of blinding colors and weird patterns. Lola can now wear one of her favorite T-shirts in school, she deserves it.

“Hey Tracy, nice shirt!”

Tracy turns around, to find Lola in one of the T-shirt she bought yesterday. 

Tracy nods, “Thanks, but I can’t say I like you T-shirt.” 

“T-shirts, I know, they’re your worst enemies in this cruel world.” Lola says, her movements wide and dramatic.

Sherwood steps closer to Lola, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I thought Angie was your worst enemy.” 

Tracy smirks, “Angelo and the T-shirts, I have a lot of enemies.” 

Speaking of Angelo, where is he?

Tracy looks around her, no trace of Angelo in the hallway. “Sherwood, Lola, do you know where Angelo went? I’m sure I saw him on my way to school.”

Sherwood and Lola share a look before shaking their heads, “No, didn’t see him.” Lola says.

“Oh well, too bad, guess I can’t blind him with this horrible shirt.” Tracy shrugs, and pat Lola’s head on her way to class.

Lola catches up with her, “Hey! I thought you liked it!” she exclaims. 

“I do like it, but you gotta admit, this shirt could kill someone.”

Sherwood hums, “She’s got a point Lola.”

__

Class has started since twenty minutes already, Angelo is nowhere to be found. Tracy thinks he’s just late, and stops worrying. But when Angelo enters class covered in dust, his knee bleeding and turning an awful shade of purple with Schmitty behind him, Tracy, Lola and Sherwood are getting really worried.

“Sorry Mr Foote, I fell down the stairs.” Angelo grunts, using Schmitty to walk to his seat without falling down.

Her uncle is looking a bit pale at the sight of blood, “It’s… it’s alright Angelo, do you want me to call your parents?”

“Nah, it’s alright.” Angelo says, flinching a little when he sits down.

Sherwood and Lola are right in front of him, and they both turn their chairs when Foote stops looking.

They whisper loud enough for Tracy to hear, but she’s too far away to be part of the conversation.

“Dude, what happened?”

“I fell down the stairs.”

“Seriously?”

“I-I saw a flash of green and I tripped, the next thing I knew I was down the stairs and my knee was killing me.”

A flash of green huh? Guess that shirt  _ can _ kill someone after all. 

Tracy hears Lola’s laugh, she tries to make it pass as a cough. “Green like the beautiful shirt Tracy and I bought yesterday?” 

“Maybe…”

“You heard that Tracy,” Lola whispers, because she knows Tracy’s listening. “Angie fell for you.” 

Tracy snorts and shakes her head, her uncle glares at her, his face still paler than usual, “Tracy, what’s so funny?”

_ Your face _ Tracy wants to say, but she’s eating dinner at his house tonight so she bites it back and apologize. “Nothing Mr Foote, sorry.”

__

Angelo’s having trouble to walk, and Sherwood and Lola might be his best friends, they’re really bad at cooperating, they can’t hold him without one of them falling. The lunchroom is on the other side of the building, and they’ll have to face at least two stairs. They’re doomed to fail. 

“Guys if you don’t stop right now I’m putting you two in detention.” Tracy says, gesturing to Lola and Sherwood when they reach the first stairs.

She steps closer to Angelo and push Lola and Sherwood away.

“Okay, Angelo, lean on me as much as you can,” she grabs his waist and holds his arm over her shoulder to have him as close to her as possible. “If the two idiots could make sure they can catch Angelo if we fall that would be great.”

Lola clears her throat and walk in front of them, while Sherwood stays behind.

Tracy nods to Lola, and helps Angelo get down the first step. 

Angelo hisses when his bad leg touches the ground.

“It’s gonna hurt Angelo, I’ll make it quick.”

“Please do.” He grunts.

They walk all the way down the stairs in less than a minute, thanks to Angelo’s perfect balance and Tracy’s hard grip on him. Angelo has to lean on the wall to calm the pain, and soon after Tracy’s in charge of carrying him around the school.

The hallways are easy, Tracy only needs to help Angelo without having his bad leg touching the ground to avoid any pain. The next stairs are more complicated, mostly because half a class is sitting on it during lunchtime, making the way down the stairs nearly impossible for Angelo and Tracy. 

Lola clears her throat, “Guys, can you move? My friend here can’t pass.” 

A few of them turn around, and one of them scoffs, “Find another way.”

Tracy frowns, this guy in particular will spend so much time in detention he’s gonna miss it when it’s over. 

Tracy smiles, “I don’t think you understand.” With a quick movement she points at the notepad secured behind her belt, “If you don’t move you spend the rest of the year in detention.”

“You can’t,” the guy says, mocking her. “I know the rules, these stairs are mine.”

Angelo rolls his eyes, “ _ She _ is the rules,” he says, pointing at Tracy, “now move.”

The guy grunts and stands up, towering over them, his friends do the same. He’s way taller than Tracy, and he steps closer to be more menacing. It’s a shame Tracy’s holding Angelo, otherwise she would’ve pushed the guy away. Instead she clenches her teeth and stands her ground.

“Lola, can you go get my uncle? Tell him ‘Mr Foote, some idiots refuse to go in detention’.”

Adding the ‘Mr Foote’ part is just to make the guy understand  _ who  _ Tracy is, and it’s worth it. The guy’s eyes widen, and his mouth hangs open for a second, “You’re Mr Foote’s  _ niece _ ?”

“Yes she is,” Angelo sighs, “and I can’t get down these stairs if you don’t move.” 

The guy nods, and with a wave of the hand he and his friends leave the stairs empty.

“ _ Thank you _ ,” Tracy spits, she adjusts her grip on Angelo, “here we go, you ready?”

“Yeah.”

Now that they know what to do, they’re way faster than before. Angelo hisses a lot, and Tracy fears his knee might be infected, she will have to check later. It would be a shame if Angelo was seriously hurt by a green shirt…

The lunchroom is full of noise and excited students yelling at each other while sitting at the same table. Tracy spots her uncle and Perla in the corner, they gave up on making the room silent, an are now trying to eat in the middle of the chaos.

Lola leads the four of them across the mess and to one of the only table who’s still clean. The table is clean for a reason, it’s right under the air duct and everyone sitting there would be freezing. Sadly it will have to do…

Schmitty’s food is, as usual, disgusting, if it isn’t already on the walls, the floor and the ceiling. “Every time,” Tracy sighs, poking at the green blob in front of her with her fork, “every time I ask for better food, they tell me ‘ _ at least it’s healthy _ ’.”

Sherwood gapes at her, “You tried to change the menu?”

“Of course I tried! I’m not planning to torture every student and then myself to death, I’m not  _ that  _ mean, Sherwood.”

Lola smiles and lays her hand on Tracy’s arm. “Yeah, Sherwood, it’s her redemption arc, she’s our friend now.

“If you say so.” Sherwood shrugs, and turns his head just in time to avoid a flying apple thrown by Manetti. “But I don’t trust her yet.”

“I don’t trust you either.” Tracy smiles coldly, she rips a page of her notepad and signs it. “Manetti-“ He turns his head and receives the crumpled paper in the face. “-detention for you,  _ don’t _ throw apples near my table.”

Angelo isn’t being talkative right now, he’s clenching his teeth and squirming in his seat to find a position that  _ doesn’t _ hurt like hell. The poor boy must have hit his back really hard in his fall for it to be this painful.

Tracy hesitantly pats his shoulder, she’s not good at comforting others. “You should go home.” 

Angelo rolls his eyes, “Do I get a detention if I say no?” 

“Don’t give me ideas and just go home.”

Sherwood nods in approval and adds, “Angie, do as she says.” 

Angelo shakes his head. “Nah, I can survive an afternoon.” He eats some of the  _ thing _ in his plate and spits it back immediately. “It tastes worse than my mom’s food!”

Is he dumb or just faking it? “Angelo, you can barely walk,  _ go home _ .” 

__

“So,” Lola sighs, “Wanna be our lab partner?”

Tracy had to force Angelo out of the school after lunch, leaving a free place in Sherwood and Lola’s science group,  _ of course _ she’s working with them, the other choices are worst anyway. “I think  _ I _ can survive an afternoon.”

“Welcome to hell.” Sherwood says, and when Tracy sees Lola sniff the inside of a bottle labeled ‘do not breathe’ she understands why.

_ Maybe she can’t survive an afternoon after all... _


	8. How to spend an afternoon without Angelo?

“Lola, stop it!” Tracy yells, snatching the bottle away. 

Lola whines and tries to get the bottle back, Tracy and Sherwood desperately trying to hold it away. “Come on guys! I’ll be carefull, just let me hold it.”

“Nuh uh. You’ll poison yourself one day.” Sherwood retorts, placing the bottle on his side of the table. 

Tracy stands in the middle to block Lola away, and she and Sherwood start working on their project.

Lola crosses her arms. “This is  _ unfair _ .” She slouches on her chair, her head bumping against the window and making a weird ‘bonk’ noise.

“Yeah, yeah.” Tracy mumbles, waving her hand in Lola’s face. “I don’t care as long as you let us work.”

Sherwood is a more serious lab partner than any other student. There’s still an uncomfortable thing between him and Tracy, but it's better than nothing.

__

“Tracy, I think Ajay is watching us.” Sherwood whispers. He glares at Ajay who turns away immediately.

Oh so when Tracy’s not busy stealing Sherwood’s work she has to protect it?

To be fair this science project is also  _ her  _ work… 

_ Who is she kidding? Of course she’ll protect their work, it’s Ajay copying it. _

“Stop watching him, I’ve got this.” Tracy says, placing her back to Ajay and opening Lola’s pocket mirror, this way she can look at Ajay as long as she wants without getting caught while shielding Sherwood’s work from his view.

Sherwood’s hands move around the table, manipulating liquids, writing down everything he discovers with a clear handwriting regardless of the hand he is using.

Lola leans on Tracy’s shoulder, her fingers tapping on her phone way faster than anybody else. “You didn’t knew he was ambidextrous, did you?”

“That’s… impressive.” Tracy responds, Sherwood nodding at her.

“He’s still looking?” he asks.

Glaring down at the mirror, Tracy can see Ajay squirming in his chair to look past her shoulder without looking too suspicious. “Yeah.”

“Shit.” He curses, “We can’t let him steal our work!”

Lola nods, eyes locked on her phone. “We could tell Mr Foote about what he’s doing.”

“We could.” But Tracy has a different idea. “ _ Or _ , we could ruin  _ his _ work by giving him the wrong answers.”

Lola’s phone buzzes and she snorts when she reads the notification. “Since Angie has the same idea, I think that means we should do it.”

__

The three of them tried their best to finish their work quickly, leaving them with twenty minutes of free time before the end of the class. They worked fast and silently, and were carefully hiding what they did from Ajay’s view. When everything was finished, Lola gave the results to Foote as discreetly as she could, while Sherwood and Tracy talked about how wrong their results were.

“We have to start all over again!” Sherwood says, waving his hands around to catch Ajay’s attention.

“This time don’t keep everything to yourself…” Tracy groans, “It would be a lot faster if  _ sir know-it-all _ shared with the rest of his group.”

Lola walks back and asks for them to calm down, forcing them to ‘go back to work’. They work slowly, separating every step and explaining everything way too loudly. Even someone as stupid as Ajay would be smart enough to take this opportunity and copy Sherwood’s work.

Tracy has to hold back a few laughs when Sherwood explains something that  _ has _ to be made up, like the fact that water is made of  _ helium _ and oxygen. She watches Ajay from the mirror, and the idiot  _ writes it down _ .

She can’t hold it anymore, she snorts and hiccups through her laughter, tears flooding her eyes. Ajay is watching her, eyes wide, mouth open. Sherwood and Lola stopped talking and are trying to calm her down, but Ajay behind her looks so confused, so  _ stupid _ , that Tracy  _ has _ to laugh.

“Oh my God-” She holds her sides as she leans forward. “- he wrote it down, he-he wrote that water was helium!”

Ajay’d face turns red in embarrassment as he realizes Tracy’s mocking him, never looking back at them again for the rest of the afternoon.

__

Dinner in the Foote family is like a never ending staring contest, everyone is quiet and if they’re not glaring at each other it’s because they need to blink.

Then uncle Owen decides it’s a good idea to invite his girlfriend Perla…

The woman made herself comfortable at Owen’s right -that was Tracy’s place since the Foote’s monthly dinners were a thing- and started talking about ecology with her mother.

Tracy has to sit on her uncle’s left, and it’s  _ uncomfortable _ . She’s too far away from the discussion, and open window with the freezing air is  _ right next to her _ . It doesn’t even make any sense, it’s  _ winter _ , why would the window be open if not to annoy Tracy.

Even the food tastes bad with Perla around, her own parents throw their food back in the plate when Owen and Perla aren’t looking. 

“I’m sure Owen already told you,” Perla says, waving her hand in the air like an idiot, “but I’m just so excited to meet the new student.”

Wait, what new student? 

Perla continues talking, not noticing Tracy’s confused expression. “What’s her name again? Ah yes, Cindy.”

  
Cindy.  
  


_ Cindy _ .

As in, ‘Lola’s cousin’ Cindy. The girl Angelo has a crush on, the ‘super-cool-and-good-looking-Cindy’ Cindy. 

_ Shit _ .

Perla keeps talking, her uncle joins the conversation and her mother tries to get rid of the food in her plate. Tracy can’t move.

If this ‘Cindy’  _ is _ Lola’s cousin, she’ll have to support her on a daily basis,  _ and _ witness Angelo pining like an absolute moron.

She clenches her fists and tries very hard to stay still on her chair, her knuckles turn white her her nails dig in her palms.

The cold air hits her back once more and Tracy can’t support it anymore, she turns to her mother and mumbles “I’m going home.” 

__

“I swear to God if this Cindy tries to be my friend, I’m breaking someone’s nose.” Tracy tells herself before going back to sleep.

__

“Hi! You must be Tracy, I can’t wait to be your friend!”

Cindy is dressed almost like Lola, her pink hair looking like cotton candy around her face, and her smile is so bright Tracy might go blind if she stares too much. 

Tracy still punches her in the face when she tries to hug her because ‘I hear so much things about you I feel like we’re already besties!’ is _not_ something Tracy likes to hear.


	9. One Tracy, not singing in the rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually really like Cindy, but the show doesn’t describe her very much, so I decided that her personality needed to be a bit more complex than “She is nice and super cool”.

“What the hell Tracy?!” Angelo exclaims, or maybe it’s Lola, or Sherwood. Tracy’s pretty sure they’re all yelling at her. Cindy is yelling too, but probably because of the pain in her lower lip, it’s bleeding, she might’ve bit in when Tracy punched her.

Angelo grabs her wrist and yanks her away from Cindy. “What was that for?” He’s fuming, brows furrowed and all of that, he usually reserves this expression for when Tracy _really_ messes with the school’s rules like shortening lunch break or asking for more math tests in the year.

“What?” She points at Cindy with her free hand. “She tried to attack me!”

“Okay, calm down,” Angelo’s grip on her wrist loosens and his voice gets softer, Tracy feels like a child being grounded. “Let’s talk about this, _calmly_.”

Tracy sighs, she tries to be angry, to be left alone and all of the things she did whenever she got angry in the past. But it won’t work now, because _friends_. 

Lola said it was her redemption arc, Tracy’s ready for it to happen.

“Okay,” she takes a deep breath, “Okay, let’s… talk.”

“Oh _wow_ ,” Sherwood mumbles, “That’s a first for you.” He just can’t resist being sarcastic, can he?

“Oh shut up before I come and make you.” Tracy spits, and Angelo’s grip tightens.

“Everyone calm down,” he says, “class is starting in ten minutes, just… come sit outside and talk it out.”

__

The benches are too small for the five of them, so they sit on the stairs instead, the stone is cold and Lola whines about it every time she moves.

Angelo makes them talk about what was wrong, Tracy explains how she doesn’t like affection coming from strangers and Cindy apologizes and promises to never hug Tracy again.

“Now it’s your turn to apologize, Tracy.”

Oh yeah that’s not going to happen.

“ _Tracy_.”

No.

“Don’t ignore me.”

She’s not apologizing.

“I give you five seconds to make your mind.”

She won’t need it. She’s not saying sorry.

“Four.”

No. Nuh-huh. Never going to happen.

“Three.”

Tracy’s eyes meet Angelo’s and he’s just… 

_Oh, screw it_.

“I’m sorry for punching you Cindy, it won't happen again.”

God, she’s getting weak.

Angelo and Cindy smile, obviously Angelo’s smile looks better, but Cindy’s cute too when she’s happy. 

The bell rings, Lola and Sherwood drag Cindy away, talking about too many subjects at the same time, they’re clearly happy with her here.

“Hey.” Angelo scoots closer to where Tracy sits, leaning on her shoulder. “Cindy’s not gonna replace you, if that’s what you’re afraid of, you’re still our friend.”

Tracy smiles, a genuine, relieved smile that feels weird and makes her guts twist. “Thank you, Angelo.”

“Come on, if I’m late again I’m getting detention.” Angelo chuckles and stands up, offering his hand to help Tracy up. Tracy smacks his hand away with a roll of her eyes.

“Do we really have to go? It’s _art class_.”

“What do you mean?”

Oh God, she really has to explain everything? “What I mean is-” she raises to her feet, brushing dust off her pants “-we could go to the Adventure Park, have some fun, just you and me.” Her arm wraps around his shoulder and brings him down the stairs with her. “What do you say?”

Angelo stumbles down the last steps, freeing himself from Tracy’s grip. “But we’re doing portraits today! I wanted to draw Cindy and impress her.”

Ah, love, such an annoying thing… It makes people do weird things, like Tracy skipping classes and Angelo doing the opposite.

“Okay, fine.” She dismisses him with a wave of her hand. “Do what you want, I don’t care.” Tracy stays where she is for a few seconds, and when she’s certain Angelo made his choice, she leaves out of the front gate Schmitty never locked.

Tracy is supposed to have a history test right after art class, but when she steps out into the empty street, she just wants to get lost in town for the rest of the day. She can always tell her uncle she felt sick and spent the whole morning in the bathroom, or spit out anything to go with the excuse Angelo will find for her absence.

__

Yeah, actually skipping class was a bad idea.

It started raining ten minutes after Tracy left and it hadn’t stopped since, she’s soaking wet and she already caught a cold by now. Her hair is a mess, it sticks on her cheeks and turns an awful shade of brown. She can’t see without her glasses, but with the water constantly dripping on her face, she can’t see with her glasses on either.

“I’m never skipping class again.” She groans, tightening her grip on her vest. 

Tracy enters the school hallways with puddles behind every step she takes, water dripping down her chin and on the floor with little ‘plook’ sounds. She’s late for lunch and her stomach reminds her how empty it is with a long growl.

The lunchroom is, as always, filled with noise and stupid kids who think the louder you are the funnier your jokes get, like Alonzo, Brandy and Clyde. No seriously, nobody needs to hear about Brandy’s obsession with Slobber, she can stop rambling now, thank you.

And ugh, Angelo, Lola, Sherwood and _Cindy_ all sitting together at the best table in the whole lunchroom —the one next to all the windows so you can see the whole street while eating— and Angelo is looking at Cindy like she’s some kind of beautiful thing, which she’s _not_.

And now they’re waving at her. Well Angelo and Lola are, Sherwood and Cindy ignore her completely. Tracy walks all the way to their table, the squeaking of her shoes on the floor making her extremely embarrassed.

“Oh my poor sweet innocent child!” Lola exclaims, dragging Tracy on the bench next to her, pulling her so close she’s almost sitting on her lap. “You’re soaking wet, oh you poor, poor thing.” She strokes her hair and her cheeks, rubs her hands on her back to ‘keep her warm’, cooing at her like she’s some kitten she found on the streets. “Shh, mama will protect you.”

“Please, stop. It’s making me uncomfortable.” Tracy mumbles, she tries to squirm a way out of Lola’s arm, but every time she moves Lola tightens her grip.

“No seriously, _why_ are you soaking wet young lady.” Lola asks.

“That’s because the young lady here decided to skip class all morning.” Angelo replies, taking a bite out of his bread.

“You did?” Lola’s eyes go round. “You did! Oh my God you did, I’m so proud of you!” She plants a kiss at the top of Tracy’s forehead.

“You shouldn’t be proud of it,” Tracy says, “and _please_ let me go.”

“Yeah, let her go, she’s putting water on your food.” Angelo scoots on the left to allow Tracy to sit between him and Lola. “Jokes aside, I told your uncle you were in the bathroom all morning, so you probably want to dry your… well your everything.” He gestures at her shirt, glued on her like a second skin.

Tracy groans, and steals the hem of Angelo’s T-shirt to clean her glasses. Schmitty stopped working so no food for her today. Her stomach growls, Angelo glares at her.

He pushes his salad in front of her along with his spoon. “I didn’t touch it.”

Oh wow, yeah okay that’s… that’s nice, like _really nice_. Oh boy, she’s crushing hard on this idiot isn’t she?

“Thanks.”

__

It’s been a while since Tracy saw Peter, he’s just as annoying as ever, maybe even more, but hey, she missed the little guy. Just a little though.

“Tracy! Come play with me!” He yells, dragging her upstairs in a hurry and presenting her his room.

It’s full of toys, on his bed, the floor, Tracy can’t walk into the room without stepping on something, it’s during moments like these that she’s thankful for the ballet lessons she took a few years ago.

“So here’s the castle, and here’s the prison, and this is the arena where the warriors will fight to death!” Peter points at various stuff in his room, apparently the arena is the centerpiece of this mess, it stands right in the middle of the room, surrounded by pillows and blankets for Peter to lay on.

“Wow, that’s nice.” Tracy deadpans, rolling her eyes when Peter isn’t looking.

He forces her to watch his toys fight in the arena for _two hours_. Tracy never felt more bored in her life, she tries to distract herself by talking to Lola on the phone, but she has to stop talking after a while because she’s spending the evening playing video games with her cousin, Sherwood and Angelo.

She’d give anything to just lock him up in a closet for the rest of the evening, but she’s pretty sure his mother won’t be happy, so she makes him dinner and puts him to bed thirty minutes earlier than usual. 

Lola’s house is right next Angelo’s, Tracy can watch them play in the living room from the window in Angelo’s bedroom. He told her to stay away from his room, but really what is he going to do if he finds out?

Cindy says something and laughs, Angelo frowns, Lola gasps and Sherwood bites his lip. 

Tracy leans on her hand and watches the four of them going still. “What did she say?” she mumbles, she hopes it was something offensive, it wouldn’t hurt to watch everyone yell at each other.

Angelo says something, Cindy responds with a shrug and Angelo is out of the room in a blink. Sherwood drops his controller and leaves soon after and Lola turns off the TV. 

Why is the dramatic stuff always happening without Tracy? It seemed so interesting. Tracy sighs and pulls away from the window, Angelo might be back soon, she should leave his room before-

“ _What_ are you doing here?”

Too late.

“I didn’t touch anything.” She raises her hands and steps out of the room to lean against the doorframe. “Just wanted to see how you were doing at Lola’s.”

Angelo steps closer to Tracy, standing right in her face. “What did you see?” He’s still frowning, arms crossed in front of him. 

“Cindy saying something she shouldn’t have said.” She deadpans, lifting an eyebrow. “Couldn’t hear anything though, you’ll have to tell me what really happened.”

“You’re gonna love this,” Angelo says, raising a hand to push his hair away from his forehead. “Cindy insulted you.”

Tracy can’t stop the chuckle leaving her mouth, this is getting interesting. “You’re right, I _am_ loving this.” She puts her hand on her hip and tilts her head to the right. “Tell me _everything_.”

Angelo rolls his eyes. “She basically said we were using you to get better grades, and that if we didn’t we should start doing it.”

Tracy smirks, it’s _really_ interesting. “I thought she was supposed to be super nice to everyone, at least that’s what you told me.” 

“That’s why I’m angry! When you get to know her she’s more of a hypocrite than you!”

“We both know I’m worse but I get the idea.”

Angelo sighs and turns around to fall face first in his bed. “Why do I have a crush on this girl ? She’s like you but bad!”

Is he serious? “You can always ask Lola, I’m pretty sure she’ll say yes.” Tracy walks to his desk and sits on his chair, turning it around to face him.

“But I don’t want to date Lola! She’s like a sister that would be disturbing as fuck,” he yells, grabbing his hair with his fists.

“Language.”

“Shut up, you’re worse than me.”

“Not when your brother is sleeping upstairs.”

Angelo rolls his eyes again and gives her the finger.

Tracy sticks her tongue out and pulls her lower eyelid down with a finger. “If you don’t want to date Lola, there’s Candy, you seem to like Candy.”

“Candy is way too nice, she cries when she steps on an ant!”

“Monica?”

“She gossips more than every fashion magazine combined!”

“Butter-Fingers?”

“Tracy!” Angelo yells, looking more offended than ever. “Butter-Fingers is Ethan’s boyfriend, I’m not gonna flirt with him!”

“Well then who do you suggest? Because I’m running out of ideas.”

Sherwood is like a brother, Manetti’s an idiot, Ajay made Angelo gag at the mere mention of his name… He can’t think of anyone in their class he’d like to date.

“I have an idea,” Tracy says, “close your eyes and describe me the best person you can think of.”

Angelo shrugs and closes his eyes. “Okay, best person I can think of… Uh, smart, _obviously_.”

“Okay, that’s a start.” 

“But not the Sherwood type of smart, the Angelo type of smart, someone who has the same ideas as me.”

Tracy hums, crossing her legs and making the chair spin to pass time.

“Someone funny, and cute, but who’s also determined and knows what they want.”

Yeah okay, that sounds plausible. Tracy grows more impatient, the chair spins faster.

Angelo stays silent for a moment, Tracy keeps spinning.

“ _Oh shit_.”

He sits up and glares at Tracy, she stops the chair by slamming her hand on the desk. “What?”

“I’m thinking of you.”


	10. They’re dating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> School is back and it is killing me. BUT I want thank you all for your awesome comments, it really helped getting myself to write this chapter.

The room is silent, Angelo and Tracy are staying still, they’re probably not even breathing.

Angelo goes redder at every passing second, until his ears match the color of Tracy’s shirt.

“So you like me?” 

Tracy’s question breaks the silence, outside of the house a car passes and a neighbor shouts something. 

“I-uh, yeah?” Angelo’s voice breaks, he’s hesitant with every move he makes, his eyes fall to the floor.

Hope blooms in Tracy’s chest, _this_ is all she ever wanted. But then again, this is Angelo, he could say whatever he wanted to say as long as it benefits him.

“Are you sure? I mean, we just became friends and you had a ‘fight’ with Cindy-”

“-I think I liked you before Cindy even came to town.” His palms are planted firmly on his lap, he’s more tense than Tracy’s uncle on April Fools.

“ _Oh_.”

Angelo nods, avoiding her eyes again.

Tracy takes a sharp breath, “Why?”

He raises his head, their eyes meet and Tracy doesn’t need any explanation: he likes her in the same way _she_ likes him.

He likes her despite the flaws and the annoying things, because Tracy likes him despite _his_ flaws.

“Let’s make a deal,” Tracy declares, she rolls the chair closer to Angelo’s bed and holds out her hand, “we go on a date together, if you’re uncomfortable we stop.”

“And if I like going on dates with you?”

“Then we continue, what do you say?”

His hand grabs hers with more strength than necessary, he gives it a hopeful shake and with a smile he tells her, “ _Deal_.” He yanks her closer, their noses bumping against each other. “But you’re staying over for dinner.”

Tracy’s face turns red, she can feel Angelo’s breath on her face with how close he is. “I-I uhh… okay…” 

That must’ve been one of her most eloquent answers yet.

“But your parents are having dinner right now,” Tracy realizes, “and Elena is with her boyfriend. _I had dinner with Peter_ ,” she points out, pulling her hand free from Angelo’s grasp and planting her index on his chest.

“So?”

“I can’t eat dinner _twice_ , it's unhealthy.”

“Tracy,” Angelo says, rolling his eyes, “I don’t think a _sandwich_ is gonna kill you.”

“Unless it’s poisoned,” she deadpans, “do you plan on poisoning me?”

He scoffs and runs his hand through his hair. “I don’t think I keep poison in my kitchen.” 

“I do.”

“You what?” His eyes widen in shock, and he takes a step back from her.

Tracy leans her head on her shoulder, looking up at Angelo. “ _Mother_ is quite a fan of poisonous and toxic plants, she makes some of them grow in our garden.” Tracy’s mouth feels dry, the mere mention of her mother is as toxic to her as some of her deadliest plants. “She might even love those damned plants more than her own daughter.”

Angelo nods slowly and bites his lip, his fingers are gripping at nothing. “That’s… that’s not made up is it?”

She shakes her head.

“Do you need a hug?”

A hug sounds nice, _really nice_ . “I don’t _need_ it, but I’d like one please.”

Arms wrap around her and her face falls in the crook of his neck as his fingers run through her hair and brush her scalp. _This_ is the kind of comfort her mother never gave her, _this_ is what her father was too proud to do. 

“ _How_ is your hair this soft?” Angelo asks.

“I like to think it’s genetics, but it’s mostly shampoo. My uncle uses the same one.”

“Wow, way to ruin the moment,” he deadpans, “I don’t want to think about your uncle when I’m touching your hair.”

Tracy snorts, shaking her head under his hands. She’s about to say something back when some kind of growl interrupts her. “Was that your _stomach_?” she asks, leaning back and stretching her arms.

“Uh, yeah? I’m still hungry.” 

“Well go eat something!” Tracy points at the door in a sharp wave of the hand.

“But you asked for a hug!”

“I could’ve waited until _after_ you ate something you idiot.”

“Whatever,” he says, “I’m gonna eat some _unpoisoned_ sandwich all by myself. You’re free to search my room for embarrassing stuff.” He leaves the room with his stomach growling a second time.

 _Embarrassing stuff_. 

Tracy glares at the desk, and rolls the chair to sit in front of it. It’s littered with pieces of paper and discarded pens, and there’s a photo of Angelo’s family on the side. His computer looks old, probably something Elena used before buying her own computer. 

She turns the computer on, expecting lots of video games and nothing else. She finds only three games, and files, lots of them, one of them marked ‘ _classmates_ ’. 

She opens it.

Inside the files are other files each of them named after someone in their class, after a quick look, Tracy spots a file for Lola and for Sherwood, and a newly added one for Cindy. They’re a file with her name, and it’s the heaviest. Of course she’s going to look.

In her file is another file named ‘ _evidence_ ’ and it’s photos and videos of her stealing or breaking stuff or her insulting other students. 

“Clever,” she whispers, “and of course you have a backup file if I delete it here.” That’s a supposition, but it’s almost certain that he _does_ have a backup file.

She deletes the file anyway, leaving only a note behind.

_I think I’ll stick with being nice._

__

Angelo’s mother drives Tracy home, her parents are watching the news on the couch when she enters her house, and they only talk to her to tell her to move because she’s in front of the TV.

She insults them both under her breath on her way upstairs.

__

Oh how delightful to arrive in front of the school to find Cindy sitting alone on the bench. Well not really _alone_ because Monica and Candy are there, but Angelo, Lola and Sherwood _aren’t there_ and that’s good.

What’s even more delightful is the detention she gave to Cindy for chewing gum and the angry glare she received in return.

Lola gives her a fist bump when she sits on the bench next to her and Sherwood pats her on the shoulder. They don’t seem to know what happened yesterday evening between her and Angelo, but they could also just don’t give a fuck.

Angelo who is wearing her leather jacket, _cute_. 

He smiles at her and wraps his arm around her shoulder, dragging her to sit right next to him. She could get used to it.


	11. Poultry Music.

November’s almost over, in a few days every shop will sell advent calendars and Christmas presents, Tracy couldn’t care less.

The air gets colder, the cold gets drier and her fingers get numb every time she steps inside. Winter break is in three days.

Her friends hate the cold, Angelo never follows her outside after lunch, she’s all alone in the school yard except for Manetti who doesn’t notice the change in temperature. 

__

Tracy enters class with her cheek redder than Angelo when he’s blushing, and she can’t really feel which hand is which.

She sits next to Lola, who gasps when she touches her hands. “You’re freezing Tracy! Your heart isn’t made of stone anymore, you can’t just freeze like this!” None of this makes sense, but Lola sounds shocked enough for Tracy to apologize.

Mrs Perla talks about some artist or whatever, Tracy’s more interested in the ceiling at this point.

“-you will have to do this project in groups of six, if you can’t decide I’ll choose for you,” she says, and the whole class starts talking.

A month ago Tracy would’ve waited for things to settle and the teacher would put her in a group.

Now her boyfriend is writing her name down on top of the group’s list, right next to her best friend’s name and Sherwood is added right after.

Cindy says she wants to be with her cousin so she’s reluctantly added to the group and Manetti is shoved at their table by Mrs Perla. _Great_.  
__

“Okay, so we have two weeks to work on our presentation, what are we doing?” Sherwood asks, already taking notes with both hands for the sake of efficiency and maybe a bit to show off.

He dragged Tracy and Lola over to his house to work together while the rest of their group is in detention, thanks to Tracy and her uncle.

“What is it even about?” Tracy groans, leaning against Lola’s side. “The effects of art on  _ chickens _ ?”

Lola laughs, eyes wide like she wasn’t expecting it. She claps a hand on Tracy’s shoulder, “ _ Poultry music _ ,” she says, before bursting out in laughter with Tracy.

“Ha. Ha. Very funny,” Sherwood deadpans, “but no. We have to create a play and present it to Damien Burst in two months.”

Oh, right. That’s not as fun as poultry music.

“It’s  _ Damien Burst _ , the chicken still stands.” Lola says, and… she’s totally right.

“We have to make something that’s easy to learn because, you know…  _ Manetti _ . Plus Damien would love some originality.” Sherwood mumbles, scribbling about a hundred different ideas on his paper. “Like sitting on stage doing nothing for three hours.”

“No, he already did something similar last year,” Tracy interjects, Lola and Sherwwod look at her like she grew a second head. “What? My uncle dragged me to a few of his ‘shows’ because I needed to ‘ _ discover new things _ ’.”

“Did you like it?” He asks.

“It was the play Angelo was forced to participate in, you guys changed the whole thing into a musical mess.”

“Oh, yeah I remember, good one. So, did you like it?”

“Angelo messed with the script.”

“So?”

“I  _ hated  _ it. I spent half an hour listening to him count to fifty and then he decides it’s time to dance. With  _ Brandy _ .”

Lola raises her eyes from her phone, “Someone’s  _ jealous _ ,” she says.

“With the way that he danced? No fucking way.” Tracy spits, cringing as she remembers how embarrassing it was to watch him dance like an idiot in front of half of the town.

__

They couldn’t decide on something without Angelo, Cindy and Manetti, so they settled on watching movies until one of their parents called them to go back home.

Her mother called Tracy and asked her where she was, she stopped caring as soon as Tracy said she was at a friend’s house. Sherwood and Lola agreed on saying she was a bad mother.

And uh… yeah, she  _ is _ .

“I guess we’re doing a sleepover then,” Sherwood says, he’s scrolling through his phone, searching for who knows what. “I mean, if you want to?”

“ _ I  _ want to.”Lola grins and wraps an arm around Tracy’s shoulder. “Come on Tracy, say ‘yes’  _ pleeaase _ .”

Does she want to stay at Sherwood’s house with Lola and play stupid games all night? Strangely, yes, she really wants to.

“I’ll have to go home and grab some clothes, but yeah, I’ll stay.”

__

Her house is as cold as ever when she steps inside, nobody’s home yet, and she  _ hates _ it. Tracy runs to her room and packs her things like she’s on the run. She’s out of there in two minutes, running down the streets with her backpack on as fast as she can to escape this shithole of a house.

When she comes back to Sherwood’s house and rings the doorbell, it’s Angelo who opens the door.

“Since when are you here?” She asks, walking past him to drop her bag in Sherwood’s living room.

“Hello to you too,” Angelo mumbles, “Sherwood invited me over, you know, ‘cause we’re doing a sleepover, apparently.”

“Your mother let you come on a Tuesday night?” Tracy crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow at him.

“We’re fourteen Tracy, I don’t have a bedtime anymore.” He retorts, stepping in her space like he always does.

Tracy’s hand raises to his cheek, her fingers tapping lightly at the bags under his eyes. “I’m the babysitter here, and it looks like you need some sleep.” She pats his cheek next, before giving him a quick peck on the corner of his mouth.

“Ugh, gross. Stop making out in my kitchen.” Sherwood groans, he sticks his tongue out at Angelo on his way to the kitchen and Tracy gives him the finger.

“Who’s making out with who?” Lola’s voice comes from the bathroom, and Tracy can see her sticking her head from behind the door. “Oh she’s back okay, now I understand.”

“What do you mean by that, Pinky?” Tracy asks, because who would Angelo be making out with if not her?

“Pinky? Really, Tracy?  _ Lame _ .” Lola’s face twists in exaggerated disgust. “I thought he was talking to someone else.”

“First of all, you literally called me ‘Tea-bag’ like, thirty minutes ago,” Tracy says, “And second of all, who the hell would he be talking to?”

“I don’t know, I’m in the bathroom!”

Tracy rolls her eyes and scoffs. She drags Angelo to the couch and on her lap under Sherwood’s disgusted glare. “What?” she says, “You want a photo or something?”

“Tracy, be nice.” Angelo whispers, his fingers playing with her hair as soon as he sat down.

“Can you go back to fighting all the time please?” Sherwood asks, “I’m really not used to you two…  _ flirting _ . I mean, Angelo, you’re sitting in her lap, that’s  _ weird _ .”

Angelo glares at Sherwood, before dragging his legs up to be  _ even more  _ in Tracy’s lap than before. Tracy grabs under his thighs to keep him from falling. “Can’t help it, she’s comfy.”

“Gross.”

“Hey don’t be rude, Sherif.” Lola slips down on the couch next to him and elbows his side until he apologizes. “You’re cute, I like it,” she tells Angelo.

Of course he’s cute, his hair is falling in front of his face because he isn’t gluing it back with two tons of gel, and he has that really pretty expression on his face as he plays with Tracy’s hair. He reaches that spot on her scalp that puts her to sleep so easily, and she sighs. 

“Angelo, stop, I’m falling asleep.”

“But it’s so cute.” Lola and Angelo say at the same time, winking at each other.

“She’s right, stop it. My parents will be home soon.” Sherwood retorts, turning his console on and handing a controller to Lola and Angelo.

__

Dinner at Sherwood’s house is definitely better than at Tracy’s house. His parents are funny, and kind, and his mother actually  _ hugged _ her when she introduced herself to her.

The food was nice too, chicken with spices that burn her tongue just how she likes it and vegetables that could make a child eat healthy food without a fuss.

The parents set up mattresses in the living room and told them to have fun, and then they just left to go on a date together, just like that, because their son has a sleepover and they want to leave him alone. 

Sherwood turned all the lights off, leaving only two candles in the middle of his coffee table and clapped his hands together. “Let the tradition begin!”

The tradition turns out to be a very detailed list of things to do during a sleepover, such as eating snacks, pranking people over the phone and playing at ‘spin the bottle’. Tracy is quite surprised by the latter, but it shouldn’t be a surprise with how affectionate Angelo, Lola and Sherwood are.

And apparently it’s really fun to kiss your best friends and pretend you’re in some shitty rom-com. Which is why they also have to pick a paper with some dumb trope written on it.

She has the honor of spinning the bottle first when the game begins, because it’s her first time and everything, and it lands on Lola who grins instantly. The paper says to ‘ _ do the classic get back together scene _ ’.

“Samantha, don’t leave me!” Lola says, taking a deep voice and dramatically waving her arms around.

“But I saw you kissing Jessica five minutes ago, Andrew. I don’t love you anymore!” Tracy says, trying her best not to laugh at how ridiculous this is.

“She forced me, Samantha. I only love you.”

“Oh Andrew, I love you too!”

And then Lola is grabbing at her shirt and pulling her really close, their lips almost touching before asking, “You ready?”

Tracy whispers a soft ‘yeah’ and Lola’s kissing her. Her lips are soft and it feels really warm, the tips of her ears are burning hot and she can feel herself blushing. It’s a nice kiss, if you’re into having no chemistry at all and only caring about sensations. 

“That was fun,” Lola says once they part. She slumps down on the mattress and spins the bottle.

It lands on Sherwood after almost landing on Tracy again. 

“ _ Do the accidental kiss _ ,” Sherwood reads.

He and Lola set up this thing where they bump into each other so fast their lips met, it looks a bit painful, but it was pretty funny to watch.

After that Sherwood’s kissing Angelo like he’s the sleeping beauty and Angelo’s kissing Lola Spider-Man style with his head hanging upside down from the couch. He fell two times before getting it right.

He’s about to spin the bottle again when his alarm startles them and they have to play another game because  _ tradition _ .

__

It’s two in the morning when finally they decide to go to bed, Sherwood blows out the candles and just… drops down on the mattress. He snores almost immediately.

Lola stays on her phone for a while and Tracy has to get up to get a drink in the kitchen.

“Hey,” Angelo whispers, stopping right behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist.

“Hey,” she says, bringing her glass to her lips.

The water’s too cold.

“So uh, we spinned the bottle, but I didn’t get to kiss you…” He sounds sad about it, she’s disappointed herself to be honest.

Tracy finishes her drink, because she’s thirsty, and turns around to face her boyfriend. “It’s a shame really…” Her voice is barely audible, but with how close they are right now, she’s pretty sure he heard her.

“Yeah.”

His hands are going up all the way to her face, he sets one of them on her cheek and the other in her hair -what a surprise- their noses are almost touching. They stay like this for so long that Lola might be asleep now.

Tracy grabs his shirt and tilts her head to the side just a little bit. “If you don’t kiss me right now, I’m going to punch you,” she whispers, growing more impatient.

So he kisses her, or she kisses him, she doesn’t really know. All she knows is that it feels way,  _ way _ better than with Lola, he’s holding her close right there, pressing his lips against her so softly it might be a dream and brushing his thumb over her cheek like she’s fragile or something. 

This kiss is her all time favorite, she decides. It’s her favorite type of kiss, the one that she doesn’t mind sharing in the middle of Sherwood’s kitchen because  _ nothing _ can ruin it.

The one that ends a chapter and starts another one right after.


	12. Years later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to warn you, it’s more of an epilogue than another chapter, and you can consider chapter 11 to be the last if this one doesn’t work for you.
> 
> I’ll definitely be writing more for this fandom, so expect to see me again soon if you liked my work.

New school, new teachers, new classmates. Half of the people here don’t know Tracy and Angelo, that means they get to create their own reputation, on the same side this time, not as rivals.

They end up in the same class, because sometimes life is nice. They sit together every time, and they are the  _ worst _ . Their grades are okay, but the teachers can’t make it to an hour without being pranked or laughed at.

And they can’t even get detention for it because they’re not breaking any rules, Tracy made sure of that.

That time with the frogs? Fucking priceless.

Freed every single one of them, sent them all out in the hallways, the yells that followed made their day.

The teacher’s car ending up on the roof? Them again, with Sherwood and Lola’s help. 

And no, she’s not going to explain how that happened.

Tracy’s favorite so far was when they took Angelo’s cat to school and let her roam freely in the principal’s office. Of course they sprinkled some catnip in here before letting the cat in. The result was a carnage.

All of this because this idiot wanted to befriend Tracy.

__

If it rains frogs the next day or if Lola gets eaten by a chair, then it would have been worth it. And honestly, Angelo and Tracy totally would destroy the universe if they became friends.

Maybe that’s why Angelo wakes up in his bed sweating and panting after a dream that was way too real. And if all of this wasn’t true, then he’ll make it happen, and if it was, he’ll just kiss Tracy to start the day.


End file.
